"Logan, A Friend To The White Man"

by James L. Hupp
December 15, 1965

On the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, stood an Indian town
called Shomokin. The chief of this town had become a Christian. His
second son was a brave young man, whom he named Logan when he had
him baptized by the Moravian missionaries. Logan was with the white
people a great deal and soon he grew fond of them as they did of
him. He supported his family by killing deer, dressing the skins
and selling them to the whites.

During the French and Indian War, Logan would take no part
against the whites, being such a true friend to them. But all this
was soon changed, and this friend became an enemy. And this is the
way it happened:

Logan had moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio and had taken up his
home with a small tribe of Mingoes, near Steubenville. They soon
made him their chief. One day a party of Indians was camping at the
mouth of Yellow Creek. Some white men were camping on the other
side of the Ohio River. The Indians, consisting of five men, a
woman and a babe, crossed over to the white camp. The whites gave
them run and when they had made them drunk, they killed them. The
Indians on the other side of the stream, hearing the shooting,
started over to see what was the matter. These were also shot.
Among the killed were Logan's relatives his father, brother, and
sister.

Logan at once turned into a savage avenger. Blood was now to be
shed for blood. He went on the war path and during the summer he
himself took thirty scalps. The Indians in Ohio followed his
example and soon no white roan was safe. The Shawnees living on the
Scioto, near Circleville, were the leaders in the uprising under
their great chief, Cornstalk. Logan thought a man by the name of
Cresap had killed his family, and once he wrote him a letter in
which he said: "What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? I
thought I must kill, too, and I have been three times to war since.
But the Indians are not angry. Only myself. Captain John
Logan."

The war did not last very long, for the white people in Virginia
raised two armies to go against the Indians. A terrible battle was
fought where Point Pleasant, on the Ohio River, now stands,
October, 1774, and the red men were thoroughly defeated, and
hastened back to their homes on the Scioto to sue for peace.

When the conference was being held between the Governor of
Virginia and the chiefs of the tribes, it was discovered that
Logan, chief of the Mingoes, and the real cause of the war, was not
present. Of course, it was necessary that he should be there, and a
white man was sent to bring him. He found Logan in a thicket seated
on a log. The tears rolled down his cheeks and he wept like a
child. His thoughts went back to the time when he was the "white
man's friend," to the 'murder of his relatives, and in his broken
English burst out in one of the most beautiful speeches ever
uttered"

"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's
cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and
naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long
and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of
peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed
at me as they passed and said, "Logan is the friend of white men."
I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of
one man, who the last spring in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered
all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing my women and children.
There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living
creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it, I have
killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I
rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that
mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on
his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not
one."

The remainder of the life of Logan was a melancholy one. His
friends were all dead. His tribe was broken up. His hunting ground
had gone to make corn fields for the white man. He wandered about
from tribe to tribe, dejected and broken-hearted, a solitary and
lonely man. He took to drink and partially lost his mind. He said
he had two souls, the one good and the other bad. When the good
soul was uppermost, he was kind and gentle, but when the bad soul
controlled him, he was savage and wanted to murder.

In the dusk of the evening he sat before his camp fire, at the
foot of a tree, with a blanket over his head, his elbows resting on
his knees, and his head resting on his hands, thinking, no doubt,
of his checkered life. An Indian who had been offended at something
Logan had said at a council stole up behind him and sank a tomahawk
into his brain.